


Gotcha

by allollipoppins



Category: Halloween (2018), Halloween Movies - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-17
Updated: 2018-11-17
Packaged: 2019-08-24 18:05:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16645184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allollipoppins/pseuds/allollipoppins
Summary: Her eyes shine with unshed tears she hastily wipes away with the cuffs of her sweater. It is red, a joke of her own that she had perpetuated for years without end, the Christmas abominations continuously making a reappearance out of cardboard boxes left in the attic. [...] It almost puts her at ease, thinking about it. A few more minutes, she tells herself, repeating the words like a mantra. A few more minutes and Halloween will be over.





	Gotcha

**Author's Note:**

> Put your hands up if you jumped in your seat the moment The Grind™ started playing and my girl Karen Nelson-Strode showed how much of a badass she was.  
> Just a random drabble that wouldn't leave me after the movie.

Her eyes shine with unshed tears she hastily wipes away with the cuff of her sweater.

It is red, a joke of her own that she had perpetuated for years without end, the Christmas abominations continuously making a reappearance out of cardboard boxes left in the attic. It was defiance, to celebrate in advance an event on the one night of the year where one could risk being cursed for disrespecting tradition.

It almost puts her at ease, thinking about it. A few more minutes, she tells herself, repeating the words like a mantra. A few more minutes and Halloween will be over.

Except that this time, it will never be.

(Or will it?)

 

* * *

 

Her mother hadn’t intended to have a child. It seems as if, like many of the things that had happened in Laurie Strode’s life, her very creation had been something that happened beyond her control. Laurie Strode was always too scared, too paranoid, too much of a maniac to be taken seriously. Children made everything so much more complicated. They always did. But at the same time, they were also worth it. They were worth every single sacrifice a parent could possibly make.

Karen knows better than anyone else that her mother wasn’t perfect. She is also keenly aware of the fact that her life was a lot of things, everything but unicorns and roses and rainbows and all the things that made a little girl’s life sweet and made girls as a whole innocent beings, unaware of the dangers that lurked in this world.

After the counsellors had come and gone and come again, everyone expected her to leave for good. Leave behind little Karen Strode, who must have been the most miserable child to live in Haddonfield, and Laurie Strode, the mother whom she had never been.

And yet she stayed.

People would say that this was because of Ray. It probably was, in a way.

Ray was a good man. He had known about her, like most of the townsfolk of Haddonfield, and yet he hadn’t blinked once or taken his precautions with her, never once behaving as if he were handling her with gloves on, or walking on eggshells. He hadn’t minded a girl prone to night scares, afraid of her own shadow, who startled awake the moment her baby girl stopped crying in the dead of night when, only moment ago she had been wailing. Ray had known what to expect. Even at times when it seemed like he had finally had enough, he had never once left her side and Allison’s. He had borne the curse of being related to a member of the Strode family while cracking a few jokes and occasionally – increasingly – losing his temper.

But Karen knew better than to put it all on Ray.

And now he was gone.

And Michael Myers was going to pay for it.

 

* * *

 

Laurie Strode is somewhere out there, perhaps more dead than alive, and she has no way of telling which is which. There is nothing she can do about that.

Thinking about her mother makes Karen want to cry. Cry out of frustration, out of an anger fully directed towards the woman who had once trained her, intending for her only child to become a killing machine set to shoot on sight.

Fuck, she wants her mother so bad right now, in a way she couldn’t remember ever feeling. She wants to apologize for being like this, for being so weak, for not trusting her, for not listening.

 

Behind her, Allison is slowly catching her breath, hiccuping and desperately trying to stay quiet. The silence surrounding them is suffocating in a way no house should ever be.

Now is not the time for tears, she tells herself, her grip on the gun growing steadier in a familiar, faraway manner.

 

* * *

 

Karen Strode knows a lot of things. She knows how to fire a gun and refill the chamber with bullets in less than 15 seconds – a decent amount of time and a personal best, though she knows that once, she was much faster than that.

Karen Strode knows how to lure a predator into a false sense of safety. Karen Strode knows how to play the victim. She has played the game her entire life, and she knows it better than anyone else.

There are many thoughts, incoherent and fast-paced coursing through Karen’s mind, waiting for Michael Myers to step into the light.

But there is one that resonates the loudest amid the chaos.

 

“ _Fucking finally_.”

**Author's Note:**

> Comments, kudos, tomatoes and bookmarks are always appreciated ^^  
> I'm @allollipoppins on tumblr & @AriL10N355 on twitter, hmu!


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